the article is correct, subst will not work especially if the service runs under a user account. The steps are perfectly reasonable, although i have to say this topic (starting in single user mode) has been done to death.

For reference, there is no MOVE parameter for ALTER DATABASE you should use MODIFY to alter a file or filegroup. Otherwise very tidy article, well done

One cannot but admire all the brave DBA's out there who have to live with "a constant fear of losing data because of the mistakes of some developer or support person". Personally, I'm sure I couldn't handle such stress!

Although, by the sound of it, that's not exactly what happended here. More like errare humanum est, eh?

This reminded me of something that happened a few years ago when working on SQL Server 2000. Same scenario. Following is what I did to resolve the issue:a) Create a dummy folder (say "X") on a drive having ample space.b) Created the same folder hierarchy (\X\Foldername) inside this folder as the path of the folder where tempdb was supposed to be located.c) Mapped this newly created folder (X) as the drive (G-drive in this case).

On starting the SQL Server Service, it created the tempdb on this mapped G-drive which in turn was folder "\X\Foldername".